Course Details

There’s an entire field in which researchers scientifically test elements of the college experience. Is group studying or solo studying more effective? How does anxiety affect test-taking, and what can you do about it? What motivates certain students to cheat? How common is cheating, anyway?  Who listens to whom in group projects, and how does that affect motivation?  What biases do people with different identities experience as they progress through college (and life)?  Are our identities rooted in biology or “just” culture, anyway?  These questions — and many more — have been experimentally tested. Some are tested with surveys, some with experiments in laboratory “classrooms”, some with experiments in actual classrooms, and some with publicly-available data. There’s a lot to explore. In this class, we will explore two main topics in this field: (1) how we can become better learners and earn higher scores, and (2) what biases may affect each of us as we progress through college.